Herman stresses winning culture as spring football begins

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A new era of Texas football will be ushered in Tuesday. The Longhorns will finally begin practicing under first-year head coach Tom Herman.

The NCAA mandates that teams must train without pads and equipment in the first two spring practices. This will allow the Texas players and coaches to familiarize themselves with the young roster.

“The first two practices won’t tell us much other than the two things that I think are really important,” Herman said. “The two things that we demand in this program — that we don’t coach, we don’t teach, but we demand — are effort and ball security. If a guy doesn’t go hard, that’s hard to fix, so we want to see guys that go really hard.”

Texas returns 17 offensive and defensive starters from 2016’s 5–7 campaign, but the team’s veterans are willing to adapt to Herman’s new methods in order to avoid a fourth-straight losing season.

“I think our guys are embarrassed,” Herman said. “They understand that change is necessary in order to achieve some of their goals.”

The revamped coaching staff plans to implement a winning culture at Texas, which Herman believes created in spring practices.

“You have to set the expectation level early when developing a culture and developing a program,” Herman said. “I would hope after 15 practices, they would know what that expectation level is.”